'One-Stop' Commercial Dispute Resolution Services: Implications for International Investment Law

Abstract

Many newly-created international commercial courts are supporting integrated commercial dispute resolution services, which blur lines between litigation, arbitration, and mediation services. Such “one-stop” commercial dispute resolution services will affect international arbitration generally and investment arbitration specifically. This chapter examines the likely impact of integrated international dispute resolution services on the investment arbitration regime in three respects: institutionalization, transparency, and enforcement. The chapter reaches the following conclusions. Regarding institutionalization, integrated dispute resolution services likely will contribute to the building momentum for greater institutionalization within the investment arbitration regime. Regarding transparency, integrated dispute resolution services likely will give rise to additional transparency gains within the regime by placing even greater attention on the need for coherent development of law, which requires public access to decision-making. Regarding enforcement, integrated dispute resolution services likely will narrow the existing enforceability gap between arbitral awards, on the one hand, and court judgments and mediated settlement agreements, on the other. A narrower enforceability gap would reduce the significance of one of the key advantages of international arbitration: an unmatched global enforcement regime. The diminished significance of that advantage likely would place additional pressure on the investment arbitration regime to address key vulnerabilities, notably recurrent perceptions of incoherent jurisprudence and arbitrator conflicts of interest.